


28 days of hurt (Febuwhump 2021 ficlets)

by PatternsInTheIvy



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016) Whump, FebuWhump2021, Fix-It, Gen, Hiding Injury, Hurt Angus Macgyver (Macgyver 2016), Hurt Jack Dalton (MacGyver TV 2016), Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Morbid, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Open Ending, Protective Jack Dalton (MacGyver 2016), Psychological Torture, Sleep Deprivation, Torture, Violence, Whump Without Plot, internal bleeding, sandbox
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:47:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29122908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PatternsInTheIvy/pseuds/PatternsInTheIvy
Summary: This is a collection of the short fics I'm writing for Febuwhump 2021. Mostly Mac whump.The main warnings are tagged, but each chapter will have the additional warnings/tags and rating.___Day 14, "I didn't mean it":And Jack knows that sort of state that Mac gets in, the way he will close off, pretend that things are fine, even when they are anything but. He’s usually the one to pull Mac out of that sort of place—which won’t really work now, considering that he is the one who caused it all.
Relationships: Angus MacGyver & Murdoc (MacGyver TV 2016), Jack Dalton & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016), Riley Davis & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016), Wilt Bozer & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Comments: 100
Kudos: 105





	1. Day 1: Mind control

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Most of my Febuwhump fics will be posted here, the longer ones (so far, just one) will be posted as standalones.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My entry for today was supposed to be the reverse situation of this (and I’ll still finish that, someday), but then 5x05 happened and it gave me ideas and I immediately jumped into writing this.
> 
> Rating: T  
> Characters: Mac, Jack  
> Warnings/tags: heavy angst, open ending, hurt/no comfort, emotional hurt, brainwashing, memory loss, violence, head trauma, sort of betrayal, but not really, it's complicated, a brief mention of suicidal thoughts, post-5x05, but Jack is alive, look in theory this is a fix-it, but in practice let’s just say that god forgot to bless me with the full understanding of the term fix-it
> 
> I really have nothing to say about this one lol. Just read the tags.

A hand grabs his ankle and pulls, making Mac fall down hard, facing the floor. His head barely missing the edge of the sink at that. His left-hand makes contact with the hard surface first, and a scream tears from his throat as his shoulder gets engulfed in burning pain. For a few seconds, all that exists is that hurt, and nothing else—he can barely breathe through it, sobbing as he tries to feel anything beyond that. The hand on his leg doesn’t let go, and once that first bout of pain subsides to a less excruciating degree, Mac kicks at the hands holding him. 

But Jack doesn’t let go. Instead, he pulls Mac, dragging his body, while Mac tries to turn around, his left arm useless now, the pain blocking any movement that he tries to make. 

“Jack!” Mac calls out, his voice cracking, “please! You have to remember.”

He already tried that, _so many times_ today. Jack is there, _alive_ , but he was also the person attacking Mac, threatening—trying—to kill him. The last half hour has been a hovering point between a blessing and a curse. The joy and relief of seeing Jack, hearing his voice, is tainted by confusion, fear, and, ultimately, pain. 

Mac used everything he could to make Jack snap out of it, to no avail. Jack doesn’t remember him, and he showed no reaction to hearing Riley’s or Matty’s names either. He appeared at Mac’s door, pointing a gun at him, asking for “answers” that Mac doesn’t have, and when those didn’t come, he just straight appealed to violence. It is obvious that Jack, too, is suffering through this, he is so angry and so focused on understanding what happened to him, so confused, and the only thing he wants is to find answers.

What hurts the most is the fact that Mac _knows_ that if he hadn’t been able to get the gun and remove the magazine, throwing it out of the window and locking both of them inside, Jack would have shot him by now. Any memory is gone, and in its place—in the place of _his_ Jack—there is only rage and determination, and that feels like Jack is still dead, even if he is there, in front of him. 

Strangely, if this had happened yesterday, if it were someone else trying to snuff out his life like this, if he still believed that Jack was dead, Mac isn’t sure that he would put this much fight. It’s not that life had lost all meaning with Jack dead, it was just that… some days were much harder than others, and on those days, knowing that he wouldn’t ever again have the solid support from the other was just too much, enough to contemplate that maybe, for a second, the fight would have left him.

But Jack is alive, he is _there_ , and something happened to him, but Mac refuses to believe that he is lost forever. All that he needs to do is find a way of bringing Jack back, of making him remember… and he can’t let Jack do this, not when he just got him back, and it would kill Jack to know that Mac died, quite literally, by his hand.

That is easier said than done, however. Because now Jack is maneuvering Mac’s body—an uncaring hand digging into the shoulder that is already hurting, making him whimper, the other goes to his side, fisting into his shirt, and then Jack does what Mac himself had been trying to do and turns him around. The movement makes blood flow from a cut on his temple and it gets into his eye, it stings and Mac blinks repeatedly. Then Jack is straddling his chest, his weight pressing against points where his ribs burn from where he’d been thrown against the edge of a table earlier.

One of Jack’s hands goes into Mac’s shirt, the other grabs his hair. In a split second, Mac understands Jack’s intention and tries to scramble away, to break the iron grip, but then Jack is holding Mac down, pressing against his dislocated shoulder again, more forcefully this time and all that escapes him is a high pitched groan that turns into a scream. The fingers of his left-hand scrap uselessly the floor. With his other hand, he tries to push Jack away, but his pushes do nothing to help. 

Jack holds Mac’s head, raises it, and Mac’s scream of “no!” is cut by his head being slammed against the floor once, then twice, the sound of the contact reverberating inside his skull, and then there is a sharp, cutting pain in the back of his head, it blossoms from two points and spreads away.

Darkness dances in the edges of Mac’s vision. As he tries to cling into consciousness, he feels Jack lift his head once again, and his muscles won’t obey him, they feel like lead, uncoordinated, useless. 

So that’s how it goes. Ever since this started, Mac’s brain has been trying to come up with solutions, with a way out. Some part of his mind already analysed how a fight would go, if it came to that, and he’s known since the beginning that the odds were not in his favor. And he failed, failed in saving himself _and_ Jack, he can only lie there, unmoving, waiting for the next blow to come. 

But it never does.

Through half-lidded eyes and tears, he sees Jack there, frozen. Mac isn’t sure what Jack is looking at, and he doesn’t know what made Jack stop, and he wishes he could raise his head to take a better look, wishes he could say something—just one more time, one last thing—but his lips don’t move, and darkness claws at him, tries to make him sink, it’s getting harder and harder to resist that pull. Even the pain is softening, like it’s becoming a distant, unimportant thing.

The world goes out of focus, a ringing in his ears lulls him into the darkness that envelops his whole being, cold and insistent, that makes his eyelids feel heavy until they slip shut. The blurred image of Jack above him is the last thing he sees.

There’s a touch on his neck, frantic fingers prying at something, and Mac wishes he could see what is happening, and know why someone is softly pulling at the chain around his neck. 

Before that darkness takes over all of him, he thinks he hears a fearful, pained voice calling his name. 

  
  



	2. Day 2: "I can't take this anymore"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Febuwhump day 2: “I can’t take this anymore” — Murdoc makes a point. 
> 
> Characters: Murdoc, Mac  
> Rating: T  
> Warnings: torture, psychological torture, hurt/no comfort, hanging from restraints, this happens between s3 and s4, so Murdoc is free *somehow*
> 
> I am still trapped in 2x04.

“Don’t squirm, or you’re going to make this much worse for yourself.”

That advice will probably fall on deaf ears, but it’s not as if Murdoc cares about that. MacGyver can be as stubborn as he wants, it will just make breaking his stubbornness much sweeter.

Angus MacGyver’s life is his ever since that picture was given to him, and he so stubbornly _refused_ _to die_.

But Angus, well, he doesn't seem to understand that simple fact. So much intelligence and brilliance, and still that little information doesn't get through his skull, so Murdoc is going to make it.

Metaphorically, of course, because the time when he dreamed about putting a bullet through Angus’s skull is long gone by now. Murdoc wouldn't want to damage that brain that works on just another level. _No_.

Well, _just a bit_ , just in the way that will be an indelible mark of possession.

Even the idea of killing MacGyver in more personal and interesting ways doesn’t hold the allure of before. He doesn't want to mindlessly destroy anything, to make the parts crumble into unrecognizable debris. No, that is easy and unsophisticated.

Murdoc wants to take things apart _just so_ and put the pieces back together _like this_ and make something new, improved, _his_.

That is Angus’s way of doing things, is it not? It is only fitting that Murdoc gets to do the same—he doubts that his efforts will be readily seen as the honoring act they are, but, it’s not like he isn’t used to having his perspective going uncomprehended and unappreciated by others.

He is sure that Angus has no idea of why Murdoc is doing this, that he is doing this for no other reason than teaching a lesson, making a point.

More than anything, he wants Angus to beg—like Murdoc told him he would, in the first day, and Angus dared to _laugh_ at that—because that is the only way the lesson is going to be learned. He is sure that the boy is able to understand it, he just needs the proper instruction. Angus is not stupid—quite the contrary—he is just… misguided. Murdoc can teach him, he can even be patient.

Although, honestly, sometimes—in moments like this, for example—it is hard to not lose sight of his final goal, to keep being patient, to continue basking in the anticipation of what he is sure to follow one day.

Currently, Angus’s hands are tied and he almost hangs from the ceiling by his wrists. Below him, there is a wooden crate which his feet can touch—just barely, just enough to give him some respite. He is panting loudly, trying so desperately to keep his balance, to not let his whole weight be supported only by his wrists.

It is nice to watch and see Angus fight so hard, like he doesn’t know that, eventually, he will lose…

But then again, this is the whole point. The present situation is an allegory of the game that they both have been playing. Angus lost long ago, he just doesn’t recognize that. Just like he is fighting, even though he knows—surely, part of him must know—that soon enough, one way or another, that crate will be gone, and he will be left hanging.

Murdoc walks, circling MacGyver. He pays attention to every detail: the shaking legs, the low whimpers that are let into the air every time Angus’s movements upsets one of his injuries, the blood running down his arms.

For all the inconvenience that Angus caused him at the beginning, Murdoc admits that he is glad for not having killed him. How could he not? This is definitely much less boring than simply following a contract.

Murdoc takes a few steps back, that new perspective gives him a fuller picture.

And then he goes in for the main thing he’s prepared for today.

“Your little merry band of spies getting disbanded is certainly something that I did not expect,” Murdoc says. He’s known all about that, of course, but it’s not something he ever used before, “even more surprising was that your hovering overwatch decided to go chase some terrorist…”

That makes Angus’s movements diminish, and he stares down at Murdoc with a look that is probably supposed to be angry, but there is just too much pain and tiredness there to make it effective.

It is clear that not all the pain there was caused by Murdoc, and though that _does_ bother him a bit, he is willing to ignore that fact, if he gets to see that pain-filled look. Besides, it just exposes how well he knows MacGyver.

“Do you wonder if they are even looking for you? If they noticed I have you? Although, with the way things went, I am not sure that even Matilda knows of my recently acquired freedom…”

Angus shuts his eyes tightly, and that in itself is delightful—by not letting Murdoc see hopelessness cross his eyes, he tells everything that it is needed to know about that. When he reopens them, his eyes are brighter than before.

“And Jack, well, as I said, it was really shocking to discover that he was away, and that he still hasn't come back. In all my planning to get to you, I’ve always accounted for his presence, you know?”

He waits until there is a sniff, until MacGyver shudders, and… there it is, a single tear rolling down.

“Maybe I should correct that? I know people, and I am pretty sure that I could find Jack, if I really wanted, bring him here and spend some quality tim—”

Murdoc stops talking as the shrill sound of the wooden crate scraping against the floor fills the air. Another sound follows that when Angus loses contact with the surface below him—the crate away now, having been kicked—and his wrists start to truly hold all of his weight. It is a scream mixed with a groan and his next breath breaks into a loud sob.

Oh, but _he was warned_ about the squirming.

Angus continues to move, instinctively trying to touch the floor, and his body swings, suspended. The movement must pull on some of the cuts on his chest because new red stains appear on the front of his shirt—the shirt that Murdoc let him keep because it’s a nice thing to remember how it used to be pristine.

The image is everything he hoped for. It truly is.

He watches MacGyver struggle for minutes, although he keeps a look on the clock, because going overboard is not his intention, and he doesn’t want to cause any permanent damage. In the last seconds, he focuses on the way Angus’s eyes are half-lidded, the way he looks so completely lost to pain, biting his lips into the flesh to hold back the sounds of agony, trying and failing to hold the ropes with his hands, focuses on the way he breathes loudly, the way his chest moves quickly.

A knife is already on his hand when he hears something that makes him stop on his way to cut the ropes.

Once upon a time, Murdoc wanted to see the light of Angus’s eyes going off. It would have been so very beautiful and he would get lost in all that vacant, unfocused blue.

But this...

… a breathless, so tired, pained and whispered _plea_ is so much better.

“Please.”

“What is it, Boy Scout?” he says quietly. From this angle, he can see a track of tears on MacGyver’s cheek shining, silvery, against the light.

“I can’t take this anymore.”

Murdoc closes his eyes at that, savoring the moment, remembering what he told Angus at the beginning of this— _one day you will beg for death. Shamelessly. Once you can’t take it anymore, I will put you out of you misery. I promise you that._

He lied, of course. In a way.

After all, this is all about teaching a lesson, and the dead can’t learn anything. _He will_ put Angus out of his misery by releasing him. By letting him go, with the knowledge—the memory imprinted on his brain—that he asked for death, that he gave up. That it was Murdoc’s decision to let him go, that his life was in Murdoc’s hands once again—as it should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is an expansion of [this drabble](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27866813) I wrote, and there’s an excerpt in this that is just a direct translation of that drabble—unfortunately, we don’t have a good translation of “Boy Scout” in my native language xD 


	3. ALT 10: “please come back”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 3, ALT 10 “please come back” — Three times that Mac asks Jack to come back, and one time Jack does.
> 
> Tags: post 5x05, fix-it, angst with a happy ending, some religious conflict (?) that sneaked into this somehow
> 
> Characters: Mac, Jack, Bozer, Riley.

As soon as Jack walks away, Mac wants to run after him. Or, at the very least, tell him to wait, to let Mac go with him.

He doesn’t.

Mac just stands there, a mantra being repeated in his mind.  _ Please come back. Please come back _ . He doesn’t know if he is asking that as an immediate thing or if he is just asking _ please don’t let this be our goodbye. _

His right hand almost burns.

** ** ** **

Mac has never been religious, it’s not something that he’s ever been taught to be—and truth be told, even if he had been, he isn’t sure that he wouldn’t have unlearned that, by now. But on nights like this one, he wishes he  _ could _ have faith. When reality shows him its most unforgiving face, he would like to have something else to trust, to put his worn hope on. 

What he does tonight is not praying, not exactly. Memorized words that he learned out of curiosity would feel insincere, insufficient, and if he were to use his own to express what he wants, he isn’t sure that he wouldn’t end up just raging at whatever god is supposed to be out there. 

There is only silence around him now, from everyone.

So he just thinks about those words, wishing that they can, somehow, make a difference. 

_ Please come back. _

** ** ** **

“Please come back,” Mac says, for the first time, aloud. In one hand he holds the dog tags, the chain curling around his fingers and his palm.

Now those words are useless. Perhaps that’s why they finally escape his lips, he knows that they will not be heard, so there is no additional hurt in saying them and being ignored. Or perhaps that has more to do with the half-empty bottle of vodka in his other hand.

He rests against the tombstone and looks at the sky, asking why—already knowing the unsaid answer—watching as the glow of the stars becomes blurred… 

Sometime later, there are voices around him, and someone is shaking his shoulder. Bozer’s face is the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes, and then he feels someone else—Riley—tugging at his hand, trying to pry something from his grip. 

“No,” Mac says, pushing Riley’s hands away with clumsy movements when he understands what she is trying to do.

“I just want to put them around your neck, so you don’t lose them.”

He shakes his head, ignoring what she is saying.

“Come on, Mac,” Bozer says, “let’s get you home.”

** ** ** **

_ You came back. _

That’s the only thing going through his mind as he takes the steps forward, collapses against the chair by the side of the bed, and latches onto Jack’s hand, his grip firm but careful not to pull, not to disturb the arm that is hooked to the IV. 

He can hear the beeping from the heart monitor, but his fingers still go to Jack’s wrist, near the base of his thumb, and the pulse against his skin is proof that his ears aren’t deceiving him, that this is all real.

_ You came back _ .

Jack is still unconscious—out of danger, but he only woke up briefly, and no one had spoken to him yet—and no one knows exactly what happened, and how he is there, but that is something that Mac hasn’t given much thought to yet. Until now, all he wanted to do was to  _ see _ with his own eyes that

“You came back,” Mac says aloud. As expected, there is no response, but for the first time in a long while, that doesn’t hold any importance. All that matters is that Jack is there, solid, alive, that he came back, almost like a miracle, “thank you.”

For being there, for coming back, for  _ not leaving— _ not like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I’m gonna write a thousand iterations of “Mac and the dog tags”™.


	4. ALT9: Gunpoint — (day 1 sequel)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 4 ALT9: Gunpoint — (day 1 sequel): Jack comes back—literally and figuratively—but all is definitely not well.
> 
> Characters: Jack, Mac, Matty  
> Rating: T  
> Tags: heavy angst, description of injuries, brainwashing, memory loss, guilt, violence

Jack doesn’t know how he came to be here. 

All he knows is that the first thing he sees is the dog tags—that’s the first thing he focuses on, at least—he is holding them in his right hand, they are bloodstained and warm. And then his eyes follow on, taking in the rest of the scene in front of him. The image makes him drop the chains as if they burned him. 

Mac is on the floor, there is blood on his face, on his light blue shirt, it pours from a gash on the side of his head. Some of it is on the floor, staining the surface, a few of those are red smudges, from when he—god, he remembers dragging Mac, punching him.

In Jack’s hands, there is more of that red, it feels still warm, it feels just plain wrong, the metal of the dog tags had felt sticky because of it… 

Remembers holding him at gunpoint earlier— _you’re going to be real quiet, open the door, get inside, and not try anything funny, or I swear it will be your brains decorating your door._

God. His stomach feels heavy just from remembering saying that _to Mac_ , and remembering his friend’s face at that moment.

All those images are unbearable, and yet they are there, insistent and undeniable.

Jack doesn’t know how this happened, he can’t remember how he got here, back in LA, _in Mac’s house_ , and God, how he ended up doing… this. Because, even if it wasn’t obvious to anyone who walked in now, he knows that he was the one who did this, who _attacked_ Mac—he can still remember how it felt to punch him, to throw his body against the table, remembers the force he put behind that movement, remembers the feel of grabbing him by the hair, of slamming his head against the floor, _once, twice_ … a shaking, weak hand grabbing at his, Mac’s nails digging into his skin as Jack held him down. The screams when Jack was pressing against his shoulder—the one that looks square and wrong.

For the longest time, he just stays there, frozen as the memories and the scene in front of him sink in. More images assault him, they are all things that he remembers doing, but _doesn’t really remember doing_ . None of that matters now, though, nothing that he did before is as horrifying as what is in front of him. Mac, unmoving, hurt, _so hurt_ … and that is what prompts Jack to act. 

Gently, Jack climbs off Mac’s chest, praying to the God he’s lost faith in long ago that, on top of the obvious head injury he caused, he didn’t fuck up his lungs too—there are no obvious signs of that, but Jack’s thoughts are already going to the worst-case scenario, and there is so much room for _worst_ there, and he remembers throwing Mac against a table with all his strength earlier…

Mac’s eyes flutter, his chest rises and falls, and those things are just a minimal relief, they make him say Mac’s name, but the only reaction to that is a twitch of his fingers against the floor. Jack lets his index and middle fingers rest against the inside of Mac’s wrist, checking his pulse. 

After that, Jack searches his own pockets, almost sobbing in relief when he finds a phone there. He calls Matty first—she can make things work faster than if he called 911, and there is no time to waste.

“Matty!” he says as soon as she answers, “you’ve got to send a medical team to Mac’s house!” there is only silence on the other side, “Matty!” Jack all but shouts, his eyes never leaving Mac’s still form.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, she answers. Her voice has a sharp edge, “whoever you are, this isn’t funny, and I’ll find you and make you regret ever trying this.”

Jack shakes his head, his attention momentarily leaving Mac, “whoever I am? It’s me, Jack. What the fuck are you on about, Matty? Mac needs help—it’s bad, really bad.”

It takes a long time for Matty to answer, and it only makes him feel more frantic. 

“Matty, I—I don’t know what’s happened, but you have to believe it’s me,” he thinks of something to say to convince her that it is him, his brain working slowly because he’s so worried.

He hears a sigh, then, “Jack? Is that really you?” 

If it were another situation, he would be making a joke now, but right now he only wants to make Matty stop doing this, isn’t she listening? 

“Of course it’s me,” Jack says, narrowing his eyes. He doesn’t know how he’s here, the last thing he truly remembers, without the fog that separates him from his own memories, is an explosion, and then nothing. 

Is it possible that the team is as much as in the dark as he is?

“We thought you were dead,” Matty says, her voice is still sharp, still suspicious, but there is something less hostile there now, at least.

Dead? They thought he was dead? But he doesn’t even have time to dwell on that, even though he knows that he will have to. Before he can speak again, Matty does.

“Wait, what’s happened to Mac?”

Jack swallows. He can’t bring himself to say it, to confess the nefarious thing he did. His hand latches onto Mac’s, and he says, voice breaking as tears blurs his vision, “just send a medical team to his house, _please_.”

“Ok, I will do that. And I will be there soon, too.”

From what he knows of Matty, Jack is expecting that, besides the medical, she will also send a tac team. He lets the phone clatter on the floor. He squeezes Mac’s hand softly, whispering, _pleading_ for Mac to wake up, to hold on, and it reminds him of Mac, earlier, trying to argue, asking for Jack to stop, to remember. 

He feels like he shouldn’t be doing this, that he should be as far away as possible from Mac, because _he did this_ —and he doesn’t know how or why, if it could happen again—but at the same time, he needs that contact to ground him, to let him know that Mac is _still there_. If he lets go of Mac's hand, it feels like he's going to disappear in front of his eyes.

Jack stays there, thinking of what he’s going to do if—he doesn’t dare finish the thought— he counts every rise and fall of Mac’s chest, asks for forgiveness that he doesn’t deserve. 

He waits, and hopes. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's one more set in this universe because the angst in this is a bit much, even for me.


	5. Day 11: Hallucinations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 11: Hallucinations — When Mac is in a bad situation, he doesn’t know if Jack is really there, helping him, or if everything he’s seeing is just a delirium conjured by his wishes. 
> 
> Characters: Mac, Jack.  
> Rating: T  
> Tags/warnings: non-consensual drug use, angst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously, I ran out of pre-written material for most of the days and I got some unplanned real shit going on IRL now, so I’ll probably finish this in December (but I will!). I’ll just continue posting what I have prepared and then I’ll write the rest of the prompts out of order.

When Mac woke up, he was lying on his back, arms on his side. He blinked several times, the grey ceiling and the fluorescent lamps above him going in and out of sight repeatedly. There were darkened places on the ceiling that looked mouldy. Infiltration, his mind supplied. Looking to the sides, Mac only saw more of that on the walls.

He tried to get up, but his shoulders and arms felt so heavy, like they were tethered to the earth by leaden coils. He tried to move them, he needed to get up—the last thing he remembered was… getting inside his car and then… nothing—but there was nothing he could do. The skin of his arms stung as he tried to move again, especially near his wrists, and it felt sticky.

Even his fingers felt heavy.

Taking a deep breath, Mac tried to think of what he should do, but then he heard a hissing noise…

And then nothing.

** ** ** **

There was a hand on his right arm, soft and careful, near his wrist—Jack, his mind supplied.

“Jack?”

But why would Jack be there? Jack was away, he had _left_ , he wouldn’t even call home, and Mac always felt so much that he couldn't even name about _why_ Jack didn’t call—between Nigeria and the endless possibilities of something having happened, Mac had enough ways of worrying about that silence.

How would Jack be there? It made no sense—Mac tried to think of explanations, but his thoughts were escaping him, they wouldn’t _stay_.

“Come on,” Jack said, pausing abruptly and then squeezing Mac’s shoulder, “Mac. Come on, Mac. Open your eyes, it’s me.”

Mac hesitated. It had been so long since he’d heard Jack’s voice, and it all felt like one of his dreams—the good ones—that he was afraid that he would open his eyes and find that Jack wasn’t really there. How had he even come back?

Hadn't Mac asked that just a minute ago?

“Weren’t you on the mission?” Mac asked, his eyes still shut, still afraid that he would open them and break an illusion.

“The mission… it ended,” Jack replied, there was an emotion in his voice that Mac couldn’t identify. He was fiddling with something, touching Mac’s wrist again. Then an upper part of his arm.

Ended? The Kovac mission had ended? And Jack was back? _That_ would explain why he was here.

Mac took a deep breath, steeling himself for what he would see. So many times, in his dreams, he would hear Jack’s voice and turn around and find no one there. _Please don’t be a dream_.

Finally, Mac opened his eyes, an audible breath leaving him at the sight in front of him:

There was Jack—it really was him. He looked just like Mac remembered, it was like he’d never left. He was wearing dark denim pants, a shirt that was dark too, and his black leather jacket. He had a frown on his face, like he was concerned, or maybe very focused on something. A halo surrounded him, it was the same color of the fluorescent light behind him—so white it looked almost blue. It made Mac’s eyes hurt.

Jack was looking at him expectantly, and Mac felt a bit guilty, wondering if Jack had come directly to this, to rescue Mac, he had barely come back and was already having to do this—come running to get Mac out of trouble.

 _Perhaps he was better staying away, after all_.

"None of that," Jack said.

Had Mac said that last thing aloud? He thought not, but if Jack was answering… why were his thoughts so fuzzy? He couldn't grasp at them, couldn't even _think_ properly, it was no wonder Jack had gone…

“Hey, look at me,” Jack’s voice was serious, and Mac did what he asked, forcing his eyes to stay on him, “I’ll never leave you, ok?” Jack said, his eyes boring into Mac, earnest, open, and true, “never again.”

God, that was… that was everything that Mac had always wanted to hear, and he couldn't stop the smile that it brought to his face. It was everything that he always thought he would ask of Jack _when_ he returned. These months had been so hard, and he didn’t think he could go through that again…

It almost felt too good to be true. _Please don’t be a dream_.

“Oh no, this isn't a dream, an—” Jack replied, and then he muttered something that Mac couldn’t understand, frowning when he looked at Mac’s arm, "—and what kind of dreams have you been dreaming, to think that this is one?"

Mac frowned, was there something wrong? Jack was acting like there was. It brought back memories of that one first time when Mac had been so hurt under his watch that Jack had gone almost silent, only speaking when it was necessary… only trying to make Mac stay awake.

“What are you doing, Jack?” Mac asked, squinting—the halo around Jack was bothering him, it looked wrong.

“Well, it seems that getting you out of these,” he gestured at Mac’s arms, “will be harder than I thought,” then he moved away.

Mac tried to follow him with his eyes, afraid that Jack would be gone if he left his sight, but once he disappeared from his peripheral vision, Mac’s eyes slipped away, focusing on the ceiling above.

There was something wrong with the way the ceiling was… moving. It was like it was inflating and deflating like it was…

“Jack, why is the ceiling breathing?” the words escaped his mouth before he could really process what he was asking and wonder if there was any sense in that question.

There was a chuckle behind him, and Mac felt Jack’s breath on the top of his head—Jack was closer than he’d thought, apparently.

“The ceiling isn't breathing,” Jack said, “this is just an effect of the drugs.”

_Drugs?_

Mac frowned, looking at the ceiling. Part of him thought that it made a lot of sense—walls shouldn’t breathe, after all—and part of him just… he couldn’t really focus on that, because if he was seeing things… if it was all drugs…

Was Jack there at all? Was there anyone there, or was it just some conjuration his mind came up with because he felt so alone?

Why was the ceiling getting closer?

“Jack,” he called, trying to look behind him, but his movements were stopped by the restraint around his shoulders, the little he could raise his head was not enough to see what was happening behind him, “Jack,” he tried again. Mac needed to see him there—where was Jack, and why was the ceiling even closer now?

Mac felt like there was something on his chest, pressing down and making it hard to breathe, he didn’t want to see those things anymore, the ceiling shouldn’t move like that, but it was, and all that he knew was that they were going to die.

“Help me, Jack,” he asked, the ceiling was going to crush them, “help me, please...”

Jack had said that he wouldn’t leave Mac again...

When he looked to the side, he saw that the walls, too, were closing in. Mac continued trying to move, and he felt the restraints pressing against his skin, it hurt, but he paid no mind to that. He tried to raise his head, and when his movement was stopped, he ended up bashing his head against the surface beneath.

“It’s not real,” Jack said, a calming hand carding through his hair, and Mac felt tears running down from his eyes, his next breath stuttered, “whatever you’re seeing, it’s not real."

Mac made a low noise at that, no—no, please… _don’t let it be a dream_.

"Come on, focus on my voice," Jack said, and he was touching Mac’s arm again—the other one, this time—but now he did something that hurt.

“What are you doing, Jack?”

“Trying another one.”

He tried to focus on Jack’s voice, and maybe it was working, because Mac felt his whole body tingling, and his eyelids were heavy, and he let them slip shut, at least he wouldn’t see the ceiling coming down anymore—why was he even worried about that, anyway?

_Another one what? Another way of freeing Mac?_

“Another one?” Mac slurred, his tongue slow to respond to his command.

"I must say that this was fun and all—the way you reacted to this one—but pretending to be dear Jack got old pretty fast, and, well, it hardly feels like a punishment for you,” the grip on his hair now turned sharp, tugging, just on the side of painful, “right, Boy Scout?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really hope this worked out like I intended because I rewrote this approximately 9585435345 times in the past month (but if it didn’t, well, there’s always the next fic.)
> 
> As always, pretend that Murdoc somehow is free because this is after S3.


	6. Day 17: field surgery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 17: field surgery — When a mission goes sideways and Mac ends up being shot, Jack has to remove the bullet while they wait for exfil. It ends up being a difficult experience for all involved.
> 
> Characters: Riley, Mac, Jack, Bozer
> 
> Rating: T
> 
> Warnings/tags: non graphic injuries, angst, hurt/comfort

Riley had never seen Jack so focused on something like he was now. She also had never seen him so silent. When she was a child, it used to be annoying how the guy just _wouldn’t shut up_ and she seriously questioned her mother’s sanity for putting up with that. All those years, and he hadn’t changed in that department, but only now she noticed how much his chatter had become a comforting thing in these last months. No matter how bad a mission got, there was Jack, saying something to break the tension.

But apparently, he had a limit, and this silent Jack was scaring her.

Well, it wasn’t the only thing scaring her, of course.

Their mission had gone completely off the rails. It had been fucked up from the very start, due to botched intel, and they had come to face a much more coordinated and heavy security than they had predicted. It only went downhill from there, ending up here, in the middle of a forest, with Mac hurt in a way that she’d never seen before.

Riley had been in prison, she’d seen things; like people who either died in front of her or who were taken to the infirmary after a fight and never came back. But she’d never seen someone who she cared about dying. And right now, she wasn’t so sure if that wasn’t about to happen, not with Mac bleeding out in front of them, and with Jack visibly concerned like that.

Her eyes found Bozer’s—both of them averting their eyes from Mac’s leg when Jack used a knife to cut the fabric of Mac’s pants and expose the wound, illuminating it with a flashlight—and she could see how fucking afraid he was too. Then Bozer went back to what he’d been doing before: heating up a knife using a lighter. The edges of the blade were already getting an orange color.

“That’s enough, Bozer,” Jack said, extending his hand, and Bozer passed him the knife, “now this one,” he said, handing Bozer the red swiss army knife, “Riley, cut the straps from your backpack,” he said, giving her the knife he’d just used to cut Mac’s pants.

She tried not to pay attention to how sticky the handle of the knife felt and did as Jack told her.

Mac moaned when Jack started to tie the straps Riley gave to him around his leg, above the place where the wound was. His eyes were screwed shut, and he panted loudly. She could tell that he was trying not to make noise.

“Hey Mac, remember Tokyo?” Jack said. It was the first time in a long while that he said anything that wasn’t an order to Riley or Bozer, and she felt only marginally relieved by that.

Mac blinked, his eyes bright, widened with pain and he said “Tokyo?” in a confused voice.

“Yeah, Mac. Tokyo—that time—”

Jack was interrupted by a high-pitched noise that Mac let out when Jack pulled the straps tighter.

“I know it hurts, Mac, but you’ve got to be quiet, okay?” Jack said, his voice soft, as he worked quickly, lining up all the stuff… all the stuff he would use. Then he continued speaking, “Tokyo. You got stabbed and I had to patch you up in the back of a restaurant owned by a Yakuza member—this got nothing on Tokyo, you hear me? So you’re going to be just fine.”

Riley let her eyes go to Mac’s hands, and even in the sparse light, she could see the darker color of them, how the bloodstains reached up to part of his forearm, from when he had been trying to put pressure on the wound. It did nothing to distract her from the thoughts racing through her mind, not when his hands were trembling like she’d never seen before.

Jack and Mac had the “we don’t talk about Cairo” thing, because it had been such a bad mission that they just, well, didn’t talk about it. But if this Tokyo mission was worse than this one now, and if Cairo was worse than Tokyo, what the fuck happened at Cairo? And just what sort of shit had happened to them both throughout the years? God, there was so much she didn’t know.

“Yeah,” Mac whispered, and Riley really wanted to believe that he was being quiet like that because he knew that there were still people after them and that they couldn’t be found, but she wasn’t so sure that was the case, “will be fine. Trust you.”

But Mac had closed his eyes and when Jack repeated a “you will be fine,” Riley wasn’t sure who he’d been trying to convince or calm down. And right then it hit her—only then it really did—that if Mac ended up _not being fine_ , she didn’t know what was going to happen to Jack, and that was just another reason why this had to work…

“He’s out,” Jack said, voice back to that sharper tone of before, “which doesn’t mean he won’t wake up when I start this,” he paused, looked at Bozer, “I can’t do this if Mac starts moving, so you will help me hold him down. I can put my weight on his legs, but you are going to hold his torso and arms.”

Bozer opened his mouth, but then snapped it shut and nodded. As Jack instructed Bozer on how to hold Mac down, Riley could only feel relief that she wouldn’t need to do that, because she wasn’t entirely sure that she would be able to…

Her relief, however, was short-lived.

“And you,” Jack said, handing her a belt, “you put this between his teeth, and cover his mouth.”

The only sound after that—except for the crickets and other forest noises—was Bozer’s gasp. Riley just gaped at Jack, shaking her head slowly. Then she recovered, and started to speak, “I—”

“If you’re gonna say you can’t, I don’t wanna hear that.”

When Riley still hadn’t replied, Jack went on.

“I’m praying he won’t wake up just yet, but it’s not like Mac is lucky,” the last part was said with a bitterness that was almost palpable, “I’ll have to cut through the muscle to get to the bullet, Riley. This will hurt a lot—you have no idea—and he might not know what is happening, which means he won’t keep it quiet. If we are found, he’s gonna die,” he paused, “we all are,” Jack added, and then he reached out and squeezed her shoulder, “you have to do this.”

That made sense, she knew it did. Mac couldn’t scream—they were already risking using the flashlight, but there was no way around that.

Riley nodded, still processing all of that, but what really convinced her and made her realize that she needed and _could_ do this was the way Bozer was hunched over Mac—his arms pressing against Mac’s, prepared to hold him down if necessary.

Bozer knew Mac for much longer than Riley did, and this had to be incredibly difficult for him too. But there was nothing except determination in his eyes now.

“Okay,” she whispered.

Riley put the leather belt between Mac’s teeth, and he showed no signs of waking up. Then she covered his mouth with one of her hands, taking care to place them as far as possible from his nose.

Then Jack started the process of extracting the bullet, and Riley averted her eyes. This was all so hard already, and she didn’t think she would be able to stand if she looked at whatever Jack was doing. Looking at the canopy above was much safer.

She wouldn’t be able to tell how much time passed until Jack cursed, and then Mac started to move. She felt Mac trying to move his jaw and looked down to find his eyes opened wide, staring up at her pained and scared, and she didn’t think that he understood what was happening. Riley could see Jack’s hands moving in the corner of her eye, and before she could say anything to try to comfort Mac, to explain what they were doing, Jack took an audible, deep breath, and part of her must have understood, even subconsciously, that something was going to happen, because Riley pressed her hand tighter against Mac’s mouth.

It was a sudden, blood-curdling groan that escaped Mac, ending in a thin keen, just as he tried to move—would have moved, if it weren’t for Bozer—it was a muffled noise—of course it was, that was the fucking point of doing what she was doing—but it was drawn out, and God, she didn’t want to listen to this…

“Hey, Mac,” Jack said, and it almost startled Riley, “I’m here, okay? I am sorry, that I have to do this.”

Jack’s voice had lost both the sharpness of when he was ordering Riley and Bozer around and the softness of when he spoke to Mac for the last time. Now his voice was just choked, and when Riley looked at him she could see tears running down his cheeks.

“Yeah, Mac,” Bozer said, “we’re just trying—we’re just helping.”

Mac didn’t seem to hear their voices, though. He kept trying to move, making those sounds, and Riley could feel his breath—irregular and desperate—against the back of her hand. He didn’t understand what was happening, and she felt so guilty, and Riley didn’t want to think of _what_ he was seeing, of what he thought that was happening—perhaps it was better if Riley didn’t know what the fuck happened at Cairo…

Riley saw Jack hesitate, only for a second, but in the end, he continued the surgery, and Mac kept moving, until he seemed to tire, muscles just trembling beneath Bozer’s hold, his chest heaving. He still whimpered from time to time, but Riley let her hold on his mouth grow slack. Mac wasn’t trying to scream anymore.

Once again, she and Bozer looked at each other, and there was some sort of understanding, of solidarity there, because the two of them were not used to this, not like Jack and Mac were, and Riley felt some sort of relief that someone there who was shocked at what was happening, that she wasn’t alone in this. Bozer’s hands were shaking just as much as hers.

After what felt like an eternity, Jack spoke again.

“Mac,” he said and stopped what he was doing, coming closer enough for Mac to see him, “Mac,” he called, and Mac’s eyes darted around frantically until he finally focused on Jack, “hey, there you are. It’s over now, okay?”

Mac just blinked, he tried to speak, but Riley was still holding him.

“Riley,” Jack said, “you can let him go now.”

She did, staggering back at the sheer relief of not needing to hold Mac anymore. Jack removed the belt from Mac’s mouth and Riley thought she could see the teeth marks on the leather.

“You too, Bozer.”

When Bozer let go of Mac, Jack carefully maneuvered Mac’s body, so that he was cradling Mac’s head on his lap, “it’s over. No one’s going to hurt you anymore. It’s all going to be fine now.”

Mac made an agreeing noise, but he still seemed so out of it, and he still had that look on his eyes, like he was in pain—and, well, just because there wasn’t anyone… cutting him and prodding to remove a bullet, it didn’t mean that he wasn’t in a lot of pain.

God, they needed exfil, and quick. He still had lost a lot of blood, and whatever Jack did, it wasn’t going to stop him from dying if they didn’t get him to a hospital. Plus, they were in a humid, hot forest, so infection was a very pressing concern.

“You’ve got to stop pulling this kind of shit, Mac,” Jack said, “you don’t know how fucking scary this is.”

Riley checked the time—still almost an hour for exfil to get to a place where they’d be able to reach.

“Do you know how many new grey hairs I’ll have because of this?” Jack asked, “too many, Mac. Way too many.”

But now, at least, Jack was going back to his normal attitude—or as normal as one could be, after what had just happened—and that made Riley believe more strongly that everything would be well, that Mac would be fine.

As she glanced at Jack, who was holding Mac like he was going to break and talking—sometimes calling Mac’s name more sharply, telling him to stay awake—Riley prayed that she was right in her conviction.

He _would_ be fine. What they did couldn’t have been in vain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes the ending is incredibly rushed, but at least it's not a completely open-ending this time.


	7. Day 19: Sleep deprivation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Mac is accused of treason and goes through enhanced interrogation by the CIA. The first phase consists of sleep deprivation, and they use a song that Mac knows well to keep him awake.
> 
> Rating: T  
> Characters: Mac  
> warnings/tags: torture, psychological torture, sleep deprivation, hallucinations, wrongful imprisonment, mild violence, mild(?) depersonalization/derealization, angst, hurt/no comfort

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> While I adjusted this to be completely understandable on its own, this is technically set in the same universe of this fic [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27675718/) (I mean, except for the minor adjustments, I wrote this as part of that fic, but then I had to cut it during edition because it didn't really match the style and didn’t fit in with the pacing of the events happening there).

At first, it doesn’t feel like it is going to be so hard to endure this part, even though Mac _knows_ how this is designed with the intent of breaking people. The idea that this is just the beginning passes through his mind, but he refuses to let it stay there. Or, at least, he avoids thinking about that.

He can go through this, be strong. The team must be working in getting him out of this, he is sure of that. Jack wouldn’t ever let him stay in prison and pay for a crime that he didn’t commit—well, Mac is sure that Jack would break him out of prison even if he did commit a crime, but that is beside the point.

Thornton, hell, even Oversight—whoever they are—must be doing whatever they can to free him, too. None of them would believe that he is the mole at DXS. Right?

Any of the fears that Mac refuses to even acknowledge stays buried beneath the certainty that he is getting out of here.

(He avoids thinking of just how many days—weeks, maybe—that he’s lost, avoids to think of the new scar he has, that is evidence that he’s been shot, and that he healed from it, and that throughout all that time, no one came to rescue him.)

…

And at the beginning, it really isn’t so bad. Well, that is relative, of course, but at least, there isn’t anything gruesome happening. He is more anxious and worried about getting someone to talk to him—to _listen_ to him—than he is about any physical discomfort.

Whenever he tires of calling for someone, he paces around in the small room that is his cell—he can go from one side to the other in three large steps, there are some irregularities on the floor—or he pays attention to the environment—up, near the ceiling, there are speakers, one on each of the four rough walls, the lights in the room are too bright, almost as if there are too many lamps…

Mac takes a short breath when he thinks about that little detail, when his eyes go to the speakers again, and he connects the dots…

It should have been obvious from the start.

…

He thinks of what is going to happen, tries to remember all the things he’s ever read or heard about the biology of sleep—melatonin, light and phase shifting of endogenous rhythms, _Zeitgebers,_ adenosine, whatever—scrambles through all the information trying to find some useful fact to help him through this.

Mac just needs to hold on until someone comes. That’s all.

The problem is that Mac can’t help but think of everything else.

All these days that no one came to help him—is it possible that they are all in similar cells, waiting, being interrogated? _Being accused_ of things that they did not commit? That is the only reason that he can think of to explain this.

And how much time he lost? He goes back to that question, because not only is he losing the notion of how many minutes and hours are passing, but he is also completely lost as to what day it is even today. How much time did he spend unconscious?

Questions are not the only thing that plague him, but his inability to find the answers certainly intensifies his other torment: the fear.

He is afraid of many things right now.

Most of all, the fact that sleep deprivation will make him prone to suggestion.

…

Maybe the team is facing difficulties to get him, that’s all. It will just take longer for them to do it.

That makes him entertain the idea that perhaps this won’t stop at sleep deprivation.

He knows, logically he knows, that lack of sleep will be unbearable by itself, but if it doesn’t stop at that…

Mac has been trained for this, and he knows that there is a protocol to be followed. This phase happens at the beginning simply because it leaves no marks.

It doesn’t mean it isn’t as bad as what comes after—after all, even controlled sleep deprivation experiments have been outlawed, for a good reason.

But the insidious thought that maybe he will have to go through _everything_ —and he doesn’t even know exactly what everything entails, he can only imagine and guess, which is worse—really starts to get to him.

Little by little, all those fears start to equal their force to that of his resolve.

…

Looking at the speakers makes him wonder what is going to be played to keep him awake. He’s heard about it all, of course. There had been cases where people were kept awake by the sound of screams, rock songs, babies crying, black metal, white noise, rap songs… the list goes on.

Mac is sitting on the floor, back against the wall, trying not to move much, trying to conserve energy, to not tire himself—he still hopes that this will end before it gets really bad.

His thoughts go back to the team once again.

Jack is the one who would probably be able to handle himself better in this situation, because—and Mac _hates_ that it is like this—he’s got a lot of experience with things like this. Out of Riley and Bozer, Mac isn’t sure who is less prepared for facing a CIA enhanced interrogation.

But Mac hopes that he is the only one suffering through this. He too, has been in the receiving end of unorthodox information extraction methods more times than he can count. He can beat this. If it is only him, well, that is better, and all comfort—if he can call it that—that he has.

…

Eventually, that heaviness starts to build behind his eyes, despite the white lights that fill the room. Mac’s heart races just at that little sensation. He has pulled many all-nighters in his life, and he isn’t a stranger to waking up in the middle of the night—sweating and with a pounding heart—and not being able to go back to sleep, but this particular brand of sleep deprivation is new.

Mac remembers the few times that he ended up feeling dizzy because he was so tired, that he collapsed at the jet, or…

Well, that won’t happen now, and he’d better get used to that.

…

Mac has been resisting the urge to try and sleep—he knows they won’t let him, and he doesn’t want to admit defeat, to go through the humiliation of trying to fall asleep and being interrupted, but now it feels like there are grains of sand under his eyelids, and his forehead is starting to ache…

He raises his head, blinking slowly as he stares directly at the light. It makes his eyes sting, but it gives him the impression that somehow it can help him to feel less sleepy.

…

But all of Mac’s attempts to resist the urge to sleep are ultimately futile, and at the first moment he remembers closing his eyes and escaping this nightmare—just for a second—he is brought back by a high pitched noise, like a microphone picking up its own sound, in a feedback loop. He startles, the back of his head scraping against the rough surface of the wall, his heart racing.

Just as sudden as the noise appeared, it was gone.

Mac takes a deep breath, blinking as he readjusts his body, so that he is more sitting than just leaning against the wall. The sudden way he was awakened makes him feel more alert, and if he pretends, just a bit, he can believe that this will last forever, that his eyelids won’t feel so heavy that they’ll close…

Of course, it doesn’t work like that.

…

The next time that Mac is brutally pulled out of sleep, it is to the loud sound of distorted guitars, a pounding bass, hard-hitting drums and an angry, raspy voice—all of those combined in a pattern that he recognizes.

He knows that song well, has heard it _so_ many times, but never this _loud_ , never like this… of course, everyone knows _Enter Sandman_ , but you know Jack Dalton for a few years, and that damn song will be one that you won’t ever forget. Because he played it everywhere—in the car, at his or Mac’s house, and hell, at one point he even used the intro as ringtone.

Mac even learned to play the damn song. It had been a silly bet with Jack, right after they were back from Afghanistan— _just two riffs, you say? Well, then you should try to learn it in two days, how about that?_

He covers his ears with his hands, trying to muffle the sound, but that isn’t enough, so he puts his head between his knees, hoping that this will make the sound less loud, that it won’t _hurt_ him like this—won’t feel like there are ice picks being pushed into his ears, but he has the impression that the volume just raises.

Even through the layers of improvised, made of muscle and bone, sound isolation, Mac can still hear the music.

After a few minutes like that, he realizes that they are playing just the pre-chorus and chorus on repeat, Mac wonders if the song was picked at random, or if the lyrics— _sleep with one eye open, gripping your pillow tight_ —are just a form of mockery, just another taunting.

…

Mac would say that it goes on for hours, but the truth is that he doesn’t know how much time passes.

All he knows is that his world gets reduced to those same twenty seconds of the song being played repeatedly, soundwaves making his ears and head pulse with pain, and he thinks he can hear it doubled now, the notes playing both from the speakers and inside his own head that same repetitive pattern.

The fingers of his right hand sometimes move, almost making the same movements he would make if he were playing the song—the F sharp power chord of the chorus, then E power chord, then the chugging… and then it should go to the solo this time, but it doesn’t, it just repeats again.

He closes his eyes, tries to imagine that he is anywhere but here, that the music is so loud because he is in a concert, but even in concerts it was never quite like this, and he’d been wearing earplugs—it’s a dumb thing to go to a live concert without them.

It doesn’t work. Even if he pretends, he can’t trick his brain into believing that he’s at home, that he’s the one playing, and that Jack is there, singing along…

Well, not yet.

…

And then there is silence. Blissful, calm silence.

Well, not exactly silence.

While his ears feel there is something pressing against them, similar to how they would feel if he were underwater, all sounds from outside muffled, at the same time, there is a high ringing, thin and insistent…

Still, he almost can’t believe that the music stopped.

Mac knows that he should be thinking of other things, but right then, being able to relax and uncurl his body, all that he can think is that maybe he can sleep now—that maybe they will let him.

So he closes his eyes.

…

He is awakened by cold water being poured over him.

Mac sputters, tries to sit up, but there are hands on him, maneuvering his body so that he is sitting. Staring ahead, he sees one of the men who have been asking him questions. The man is towering over him, and when Mac looks behind him, he sees that his other two interrogators—another man, and a woman—are there too.

“Agent MacGyver,” the man closest to him says, “are you ready to give us the names of your associates?”

His teeth are chattering, and he has to force himself to try to contain the tremors racking through his body, intent on giving an answer in a firm voice, “I already told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I wouldn’t—”

There is a sharp burst of pain in the back of his head as the man grabs him by the hair and presses him against the wall. The sudden aggression has Mac giving a startled yelp, the sound is followed by laughter, and he has to resist the urge to look down.

He shouldn’t feel ashamed. It's just that he is so tired to resist anything.

“You already said that, and I already said that I don’t believe you,” the man’s hand is still fisted on his hair, and he tugs, making Mac have to strain his neck in order to look up at him, “I want the names.”

“I did not leak information from DXS, and I didn’t commit treason. I can’t tell you any name because I know nothing about this…”

The man snorts and lets go of Mac, “let’s see how you feel about a few more hours here. I bet it will loosen your tongue.”

…

If there is one thing that Mac knows, is that once he is out of this place, he won’t ever want to listen to _Enter Sandman_ again—sorry, Jack.

All that he wants is to sleep, but the fucking song playing won’t let him. Maybe if he sleeps, he will stop feeling like he is almost floating away, like there is an invisible thing—a force, or a barrier—keeping him away from himself.

It doesn’t matter if he covers his ears, he can still hear it, can still feel the vibrations of the lower notes, like they are making his whole body shake—that single sensation makes him shudder, something creeps up his spine, and Mac wants to crawl out of his skin.

His head feels like it is stuffed with cotton, like his body is too heavy, while his head will float away… and the music still. Won’t. Stop. Just those twenty seconds, being repeated over and over again, he _hates_ James Hetfield’s voice—and God, he can’t take those notes from his head, he almost feels _sick_ because every time the chorus ends, he thinks that maybe this time it will stop, he can’t take it anymore, but it doesn’t, it just starts again… _sleep with one eye open…_

That’s all he wishes he could do: sleep.

Mac thinks he ought to think of a way to get those people to listen to him—if they do, they will finally just let him sleep—but all thoughts of strategies and ways to try and reach diplomacy are gone as soon as they arise. It’s so hard to grasp at his own thoughts, concentrate on one of them…

 _That’s because you spend too much time thinking, Mac_.

He thinks he hears those words in Jack's voice, but it can’t be—Jack isn’t there, and how would Mac even hear him over the blaring noise of the music? He wouldn’t.

That was just an impression, he tells himself. Maybe even a memory.

…

At one point, he is so tired, so exhausted that he can’t keep pressing his hands against his ears anymore. Mac just lets his body collapse onto the floor, staring up at the lights. His whole body aches—his joints, when he moves, his head hurts, and the muffling in his ears make him want to bang his head against the floor, but when he tries to do that, the music stops, and those people come into his cell again to interrogate him, Mac just lets himself be manhandled into a sitting position once more, and when he tries to lean against the wall, trying to sleep—please let him sleep, just _one minute_ , he promises it won’t be long—he is roughly shaken by his shoulders.

It makes his head pulse with pain, from behind his eyes, it spreads around.

“ _Hey! What did you have to do that for?_ ”

That voice, booming and furious, is clearer than the others, the ones asking him questions—it doesn't sound like it is coming from far away, having to pass through the ringing in his ears.

Mac blinks, staring at Jack, who’s advancing, getting closer, his hands almost reaching the man holding Mac… and then he is gone.

Jack isn’t really there? For a moment, he’d thought…

(But Jack really _shouldn’t_ be there. Mac wants him as far away as possible from _this_ . He should be safe, far from Mac and from all this mess. That he isn't here should be a relief. He _is_ safe.)

It doesn’t matter what he thought, just that the man is asking more questions, and he doesn’t believe when Mac tells him that he doesn’t know what he is talking about.

…

“We will let you sleep—in silence, and we will even turn off the lights—if you just tell us the names.”

Mac thinks of bargaining—if they let him sleep _first_ then he will be able to pay more attention to their questions…

But he doesn't know what they are talking about.

His cheek stings and he blinks at the man in front of him, eyes dry and stinging

Mac tries, he really tries not to ask, but in the end, the urge to sleep—bone deep and incessant—is so much stronger than him, that he asks, _pleads_ with them for just five minutes of sleep. He can barely think of anything else—and there aren't many things that he wouldn't do, right now, if that meant that he would be left in peace, to finally _sleep_.

They are only interested in answers that he doesn't have, though.

…

He sings along, at one point. Or tries to. If the music won’t stop, maybe he should just join it, so he does.

There is another voice—almost like it isn’t there, like a ghost’s, and he thinks it is Jack’s, singing too, trying to imitate the way James Hetfield sometimes changes the last syllable, adding an “—a” to the words…

Mac goes on, sings the bridge— _and never mind that noise you heard, it’s just the beasts under your bed, in your closet, in your head_ —but his voice is too weak to go over the music coming from the speakers…

It does feel just a little better.

…

Maybe it is a weird thought that crosses his mind, but it is not the weirdest happening.

Just a few minutes ago, Jack was sitting in front of him, which wasn’t weird, even though something felt strange about it, but he was also holding Archimedes in his arms… which made no sense.

(But Mac could hear the song earlier, so it makes sense that Jack would be there.)

So, Mac’s idea—the idea that maybe he himself is not really there, as weird as it sounds—isn’t so absurd. He can’t tell exactly how and why he feels like that, but it seems like he is just a bystander in all this chaos of disorganized, flimsy and ephemeral thoughts. His heart races at that feeling and he just wishes he could… black out, sleep. But every time he thinks he will be able to close his eyes, someone shakes him—it’s not Jack, that he can tell—obviously it’s not him—but he also doesn’t know who it is…

And someone is asking something, and then they shake him again, but all Mac can do is ask for them to stop, he even asks Jack—he isn’t sure if Jack is still there, but he does anyway—to help him…

“This can't go on, he will be useless like this. Let him sleep, and we will try something else.”

At that moment, the thought that he should be concerned about what “try something else” entails doesn’t even cross his mind. All that he feels is relief, as short-lived as it is as he finally closes his eyes and finally sleeps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one has a sort of sequel planned for day 26 (if I manage to finally finish it by then), but it won't be posted as part of this collection because it is a longer fic.


	8. Day 23: "don't look"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Don't look. Don’t look. Don’t—  
>  The thought—an order to himself—is the only thing on his mind for the long moments that he spends with his eyes shut, breathing hard and loudly, his gasps, for once, are louder the sound of wings. He can’t look at that, just the idea of what is happening is enough to make his stomach feel even heavier than it already is._
> 
> Characters: Mac  
> Rating: M (mostly because of themes rather than anything graphic)  
> Warnings/tags: angst, morbid thoughts and imagery, non-graphic descriptions of injuries, implied torture, hurt/no comfort

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is an **additional warning**. I think that morbidity covers it, but in case it doesn’t: there are descriptions of stuff that some people might find gross. I edited this a lot for the things to not be as detailed as they were, but they are still there.

He wakes up lying on his stomach, cheek pressing against the soil beneath. His ears are buzzing. The wet dirt doesn’t smell fresh, he can detect the trace of ammonia there, it makes his nose and throat feel irritated. His back and the side of his face and neck that are upward feel so hot, and it is such a contrast to the coolness below him, and both sensations are uncomfortable, wrong. He scrambles his memories, trying to remember where he might be, but all he can remember is pain, then weightlessness, and then nothing.

And it’s not only the memory of pain that assaults him. No, Mac’s hurting still, his whole body screaming even at the slightest movements he makes—the twitch of his left arm, where his head is partially laying on, makes that shoulder protest with small bursts of pain, but he can’t not move, not when his hand, the points of his fingers, his _nails_ sting and itch that much. Even if he ceases all movement, his head is pulsing with pain and, along with the permeating smell, the hotness above, and the bitter taste on his mouth, it makes his stomach twist unpleasantly.

Opening his eye—the one not pressed against the dirt—is an arduous task; he isn’t sure why, but his eyelids feel like they are glued together. In the end, it isn’t even rewarding. The light above almost blinds him, leaves him seeing one huge green dot even after he closes his eye right after opening it.

Lying there, he becomes hyper-aware not only of the way everything hurts, but also of the way his joints feel stiff—the special type of tiredness that speaks of being in the same position for too long. Trying to change the way he is lying is a mistake. A hoarse scream escapes him as Mac tries to move his right arm to press his wrist against the floor and support his weight. Whereas before there had been a dull throb in that limb, now his arm is taken by the stabbing pain that leaves him breathing loudly and fast.

As he waits for the pain to subside, he tries to refocus on his memories, but the incessant buzz in his ears makes it difficult for him to concentrate on anything. He’d thought, before, that the sound was just in his ear, but now… now it sounds like it is truly there, close by.

It sounds like the flapping of wings. Tiny wings, flapping collectively.

Ignoring that, and the wave of uneasiness that the thought provokes, he tries to move again, and only succeeds in moving his neck a bit before the agony on his shoulder makes him stop.

He won’t be able to move a lot, that much is obvious.

This is probably the result of some mission gone wrong, unless someone took him from his home and dumped him wherever this is. The last memories he has are of a post-mission meeting at home, and then… being here.

His arm twitches again, and he just wishes he could scratch his hand—his fingers—but moving either of his arms is impossible, so everything he can do is scramble his hand against the floor…

It takes him some time to notice that the buzzing sound varies and that it gets stronger every time he moves his left hand. The explanation for the way the two things are synchronized passes through his mind, and it makes his breath quicken as piece by piece fall together and he makes sense of the full picture.

He needs to see it.

More prepared this time, he opens his eyes just a bit, squinting under the glare of the sun, eyes darting around until they fix on his left hand, in front of him… from this angle, he can see the points of his fingers, and now something that he’s noticed before, but didn’t really notice, becomes clear: his nails _aren’t_ itching as he’d thought. After all, nails don’t itch. No, that sensation he is feeling on the skin that should be beneath his nails, but that isn’t, because his nails aren’t there—they’ve been torn away, and in their place is just skin, torn, swollen, still bleeding at a few places, and with dried blood in others.

And there are the flies. There’s a small cloud of flies around his hand, and a few of them are on his skin, tiny legs tickling as they walk…

_Don't look. Don’t look. Don’t—_

The thought—an order to himself—is the only thing on his mind for the long moments that he spends with his eyes shut, breathing hard and loudly, his gasps, for once, are louder the sound of wings. He can’t look at that, just the idea of what is happening is enough to make his stomach feel even heavier than it already is…

But not looking is not enough, his skin still itches and the noise is still there, and now that he knows the reason for both, those things just feel much more intense and inescapable—the buzzing sound is so loud, and the points of his fingers feel like they are burning.

He tries to move again, to shake his hand more forcefully, he doesn’t want _any flies_ on his hand— _in_ his skin, his mind supplies, throwing at him images that make a chill creep up his spine.

… these flies are attracted by the chemicals that indicate that an animal is injured, attracted by the blood, by the wound that is a perfect site for the eggs, for the larvae to grow, to _feed_ …

Forcing himself to open his eye, Mac blinks, adjusting his vision to the light that is now softer—the sun, he can see, is hiding behind a cloud—and as much as he doesn’t want to look, he ends up staring at his hand in front of him, trying to shake it as the flies land on his exposed and hurt skin. Somehow, this time the image is less despairing, perhaps because it is less bad than what he’d been thinking of just before.

Looking around, he finally makes sense of where he is: the walls tower over him, and though he can’t turn his head to see the other side, he is pretty sure that he’s at the bottom of a well—an inactivated one, if the fact that there isn’t water inside is anything to go by. The opening is about ten feet above.

The swarm of flies above continues to make noise. One of them—or perhaps more—lands on his exposed neck, and he can’t do anything to shoo it away.

Mac tries not to see this as an omen of what’s to come. He tries not to think of the other flies, the ones that will come later, attracted by chemicals released by carrion… now it really isn’t the time to think of whatever he saw in a forensic entomology journal, but just that little warning to himself is enough to make him think even more, and then it hits him: he is going to die right there if no one finds him. Mac can barely move, and he is in a pit in the middle of nowhere—or that’s what the absence of noises from human activity tells him—which means that only someone who is looking will find him.

There isn’t anything that he can do, he is trapped inside his own body, in a pit, and he can only wait for someone to find him, hoping that they will get to him in time. And it’s no that he doesn’t have faith that the team, that Jack will find him, but the idea of dying there, of seeing himself fading and not being able to do anything makes his mind and heart race.

He really doesn’t want to die, not like that, or right then, with only flies as a company. There are still so many things that he wants to do, places he wants to go, words he wants to say…

Well, there is one thing he can do to help. It’s not much, but it is better than lying there uselessly just waiting for death or rescue.

Mac screams as loud as his aching back will allow him to. His throat, parched and unused, protests at that, and his hoarse voice doesn’t sound as loud as he’d want it to. But it doesn’t matter. He still shouts for help, repeats the words, the names, until his voice is barely a whisper anymore. Because while he’s still trying, it means that he isn’t accepting this, that he’s still fighting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear to god that I spent a long time trying to make this less weird and to write comfort. I succeeded at the first, but failed at the second LOL. ~~seriously what kind of sacrifice to the fanfic gods will I have to make to write some comfort?~~


	9. Day 3: imprisonment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: _It takes them four days to find Mac’s location. It's way too long in Jack's opinion. But then again, it always is, whenever this sort of thing happens._
> 
> Characters: Jack, Mac, some random bad guys, some random tac team guys.  
> Rating: M  
> Warnings/tags: violence, aftermath of torture, kinda violent thoughts, non-graphic description of injuries, angst, protective Jack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 3 today because cardinal order is just an invented concept, and because I thought of this premise yesterday and then immediately needed to write it. ~~And because I went in to edit day 24 and hated what I wrote lol~~

It takes them four days to find Mac’s location. It's way too long in Jack's opinion. But then again, it always is, whenever this sort of thing happens.

He leads the tac team to a compound in the middle of nowhere. It’s some kind of farm, corn plantations surround part of the property and make it harder for them to access the house where Mac is most likely being kept. If the situation were just a bit different—say, if Mac were beside him, and not waiting for rescue—Jack would be cracking some joke related to  _ Signs _ , and Mac would say something about there being perfectly reasonable and logical explanations for crop circles.

As it is, though, Jack is just focused on passing through the maze of corn plants, ears alert to any different noise while they walk through the field trying not to be as silent as possible—their steps are quiet, but the rustling against the leaves is audible.

The first man that they spot is down in a second, before he can react to save himself or to alert anyone of the team’s presence there—his body falls down, just as the red spray hits the leaves.

Still, they all move quickly after that, because even though an MP5 is a thing of beauty when it comes to not being loud through a good suppressor, that shot still made as much noise as dropping a phone book from a five feet height; anyone close would know where that sound came from, and they mustn’t lose the element of surprise.

It takes them a few more minutes to cross the field and get to the house. Part of the team goes to the front door, while the group that is with Jack follows him through the door in the back. 

The door is unlocked, and any noise he hears—there is laughter—is too distant. Jack is the first one to enter, gun trained in front of him, but there is no one there. It takes some time for his eyes to adjust to the badly lit indoors, and when he can see things better, the first thing he focuses on is the blood on the floor. It is dry, and it lost the bright red color—it is brownish, instead—one bigger stain, and then smaller drops in irregular patterns.

There is a chair in the corner. Just beneath it, there is more blood—fresher, this time.

It is not that Jack is shocked, with his history, shocking him is a rare thing. He knows what to expect when this sort of thing happens—he’s seen these kinds of rooms many times in his life, has got to places like this only to find the body of whoever his team was supposed to rescue. Still, it is like none of those experiences really prepared him to see  _ this _ when it is about Mac. Deep down, he had hoped to be wrong, that this would be an exception to the rule. 

The blood on the floor is not… well, let's just say that it could be much more, that it could be a lot worse. Even if all of that is Mac's, it is not enough to have killed him—and the lack of continuous bloodstains on the floor tells him that Mac wasn't bleeding profusely when he was taken somewhere else, that he didn't bleed out after whatever happened there. And Jack wastes no time thinking of other possibilities. 

They follow on, clearing each of the rooms, until they get to one where there are a couple of men playing cards—poker, he assumes, from the lingo—they are all laughing loudly, completely unaware that they are surrounded. The door is ajar, and it is enough to let Jack spy inside and keep the gun aimed at one of the men. At the other end of the room there is another door.

Jack eyes the guns on the table, just beside a pile of cards, and makes a sign for the rest of the guys to halt. They must wait for the other group, coming from the other side, to ambush the men, without needing to kill anyone. Matty asked for as few deaths as possible— _ this is a rescue mission, Jack _ —and so far, there hasn’t been anything that would make Jack go against that request. Besides, they might need those men to find Mac, if for any reason he is not there—Jack prays that’s not the case.

While they wait, Jack just keeps watching the men playing cards. They are discussing the bets, each of them saying that the other owes them money or something like that.

“Ok,” says one of the men, “then I bet this thing here,” he digs into his pockets, pulling out something red and shiny—an object that Jack knows very well. In the man’s hands is Mac’s swiss army knife, and the motherfucker is playing with it, using it on a bet, as if he has any right to do that. 

Jack’s finger presses just a bit against the trigger, but he takes a deep breath and wills himself to not do anything. Not yet. He can always punch the guy later—and he will. Nonetheless, he shifts the gun, keeping his aim on that guy.

“I don’t want this thing,” another man says.

The first one, the one holding the knife, passing it between his hands, says, “you sure?” he hunches over the table, “Well, I’d hate to lose it, anyway. The guy seemed attached to this thing,” he pulls the blade of the SAK out, “I’m gonna use it on him later, see how he likes it. Maybe he will scream just as he did before.”

Any thoughts about what he is about to do or of what Matty asked aren’t quicker than Jack’s finger on the trigger. It’s almost an instinct that makes him shoot.

The recoil of the gun is as satisfying as the sound of the man’s head hitting the table with a loud thump, cards scattering and becoming red as he bleeds over them. 

Jack kicks the door and more shots follow—he shoots a second one, and the other men are taken down by others in the team—and in less than seconds, all the laughter has ceased. Two other men fall, hitting their foreheads against the table, just like the first one, and the other two fall from their chairs.

Jack walks up to the table and takes the SAK. As he cleans the droplets of blood off it on the tablecloth, he can’t help but notice the cards on the table. A royal flush. But it seems like guy’s luck ended at that—it wouldn’t have been the case if he’d kept his mouth shut.

The guns are still on the table, useless, near the piles of cards. Their owners had no time to reach for them. 

It’s all so easy that it feels ironic, considering how difficult it was to find this location. This means that the boss—the person who is behind this, who is the final responsible person for any pain caused to Mac—is not there, probably. 

But he has no time to dwell on that because right then, the rest of the team, the guys who entered by the front door, come in. 

“All clear,” one of them says, and then he follows on with what Jack is dreading to hear, “and we found MacGyver.”

“Where?” Jack says.

“Just this way,” he replies and makes a motion for Jack to follow him.

All the way, Jack thinks of the blood, remembers the last words that the son of a bitch he shot said. His only regret is that the guy died quickly, that he didn’t feel any pain or fear… that he didn’t scream. 

This moment, when the hunt has ended and he isn’t running on dark adrenaline anymore, is always worse. It feels too much like falling. Jack is afraid of what he is going to find, and it is only the fact that he knows that Mac is alive that holds that fear at bay, that just barely holds that fear from morphing into an uncontrollable rage, that stops him from imagining that he emptied an entire magazine into the guy who was talking about using Mac’s own swiss army knife to torture him.

The room where Mac was being kept is bare of any furniture except for a dirty mattress where he is sitting, and when Jack gets there and sees—finally—that Mac is conscious, the relief he feels is like finally being able to breathe after being underwater for a long time.

“Jack,” Mac says when his gaze lands on Jack, voice hoarse, and tries to stand up, but ends up wincing at the movement and just collapsing on the mattress again.

He isn’t wearing a shirt, and Jack can see the various cuts on his chest, over his ribs, some superficial, others deeper, and some of them have reddened edges and look really painful. Some of the fingers of his right hand are swollen or have purple bruises, and Mac’s cradling that hand on his left forearm. 

The most concerning thing, however, is the way the hair on one side of his head is matted with blood. 

Well, that explains a lot. 

“It stopped bleeding,” Mac says, as if he knows what Jack is focusing on. 

“Well, it’s still a sight,” Jack replies approaching and kneeling on the floor and reaching to brush Mac’s hair from his face to look at the cut just above his hairline, “sorry it took so long—”

“It’s okay, Jack. I am fine.”

Mac has this weird concept of being fine that includes all sorts of decidedly not fine circumstances, like a lot of blood out of his body, or broken bones, or, well, just about anything that isn’t completely incapacitating—the only reason why he doesn’t claim that he is fine when he is unconscious is, well, unconsciousness.

Even though that is  _ not fine _ , Jack is much more concerned with getting out of this place right now, so he doesn’t even bother arguing that. Besides, as much as Mac is saying he’s fine, Jack can see the dazed, tired look he has, the dark circles under his eyes, and the pain he must be in is nothing to scoff at. Jack doesn’t want to make him even more tired than he already is—arguing would only make Mac push himself to prove a point, which is exactly what Jack doesn’t want to happen.

“Can you stand?” Jack asks more because he knows how much Mac hates to show anything he thinks that can be seen as weak or vulnerable—one day Jack will strangle whoever gave Mac the idea that asking or accepting help is a weakness—and that he would rather leave that place walking.

Mac hesitates, looks around, and when he sees that they are alone, he says, “I could use some help.”

Jack helps Mac stand up on trembling legs, and he obviously doesn’t mention it, but he can tell that he is doing a lot of the work to support Mac’s weight. The contact serves to let Jack know that Mac is running a fever—not a surprise, considering the cuts that are infected. They walk slowly through the house and leave it by the frontdoor. 

“Tell you, Mac,” Jack says once they are outside, “at least I brought water to this place—so in case we see a few aliens, I’m just gonna throw water at them—”

“That part of the movie didn’t even make sense, how were they vulnerable to the liquid water but not to the water vapor—” Mac pauses, panting a bit, groaning when he makes a sudden movement that jostles his hand.

Now, Jack  _ has _ heard that one before, and this time he is prepared to argue his point and defend the masterpiece that is  _ Signs _ .

“Maybe that’s because the percentage of water vapor in the atmosphere is too low to be damaging for the aliens.”

“Did you—” Mac halts, making Jack stop too, “did you research that?”

“I wasn’t gonna let you slander  _ Signs _ , Mac.”

They follow on to a car, where a doctor finally takes a look at Mac. All in all, it was a success. That’s all that matters.

Two days later, when Mac is discharged from the hospital, Jack returns the swiss army knife during the drive home. He doesn’t tell Mac about how he found it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was this all just an excuse to write Jack shooting the guy who stole the swiss army knife? 
> 
> Maybe.


	10. Day 13: Hiding injury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _MacGyver opened his eyes, blinked a few times, and the same guilt hit Jack when he focused on those blue eyes, when he saw the sheen of sweat on the other’s forehead and the way the kid just looked like he was moving in slow motion, like the simple act of blinking was tiring him—it probably was._  
>  Or, the one in which their first fight has more serious consequences, Mac hides an injury, and things get a little dramatic.
> 
> Characters: Jack, Mac  
> Rating: T  
> Warnings/tags: angst, AU - canon divergence, sandbox, in media res, open ending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw this premise in a tumblr post a few weeks (months?) ago. I can't credit the specific person with the idea because I can't find the post anymore lol sorry.  
> Anyway, look, IDK what happened, but this got way angstier than it was supposed to be.

**Still 64 days remaining**

Jack wasn’t sure if he would need to keep that count—not for the good reasons, and it was his own fault.

When the day started, Jack Dalton had a plan. One that did not involve catching some nosy EOD tech messing with his rifle, getting in a fight with said bomb nerd, and, most definitely, did not include watching Angus MacGyver agonize and possibly die on the passenger seat while Jack drove the humvee like he was trying to put the Millennium Falcon to shame.

At the very least, Jack didn’t count on his EOD tech hiding a serious injury. 

He looked at MacGyver, who was slumped on the passenger seat, leaning against the door, his skin drained of color and face set in a constant grimace; he tried to curl around his stomach but always aborted the movement, groaning and panting, shutting his eyes tightly. Low noises escaped him every time Jack drove over a bump on the road, or if he had to make a more accentuated swerve. 

Jesus fucking Christ. 

Jack knew next to nothing about MacGyver, but he knew one thing: MacGyver was extremely stupid for letting this get to this point, for not going to the infirmary as soon as he’d suspected how bad it was, and worst of all, for accepting going on an assignment while he had a fucking case of internal bleeding—sure, maybe he really had not known how bad it was, but if your stomach hurts a lot after being punched, it’s a pretty smart move to seek medical help— that was common sense 101.

So, of course not only Jack ended up with a nosy EOD tech, but also one who, apparently, had zero sense of self-preservation—well, nothing surprising there, if he was being totally honest, but usually bomb disposal recklessness was reserved for, well, disposing of bombs, not for this. 

Jack’s knuckles were white against the wheel. They still had a long way to go, a bit more than twenty minutes until they got to the base. He’d tried to call for a chopper, but all the units were on assignments. And to be fair, they hadn’t gone too far, so normally it would have been a short trip back—not exactly the case when one of the people inside the humvee needed urgent assistance.

He took another glance at MacGyver and almost wished he’d kept his eyes on the road. Shit. The guy looked like a kid there, scared and in pain, and fuck, Jack hadn’t meant to do this. Yeah, MacGyver _was_ to blame too, but Jack had been the one to punch him, the one to rupture whatever blood vessel that was causing this—MacGyver wouldn’t need to hide an injury if there wasn’t any to hide, right? Jack had only meant to make it clear that his stuff wasn't to be messed with, not to kill a twenty-something years old who shouldn’t even be in this godforsaken desert. 

“Hey, MacGyver,” Jack said, his voice loud, reverberating inside the vehicle.

MacGyver was breathing quickly, and he’d tilted his head back now. The only sign that he’d heard Jack was a flutter of his eyes. 

“Open your eyes, MacGyver. You can’t sleep now,” Jack said, “come on! MacGyver. Angus!” he shouted when there was no response.

MacGyver opened his eyes, blinked a few times, and the same guilt hit Jack when he focused on those blue eyes, when he saw the sheen of sweat on the other’s forehead and the way the kid just looked like he was moving in slow motion, like the simple act of blinking was tiring him—it probably was.

Fuck. Jack imagined how he’d explain this—not to his superiors, no, but how would he tell a mother and a father that he’d killed their son in a stupid fight? He might not have meant it, but if there was one thing he’d learned was that intentions mattered nothing next without the proper actions.

And Jack was to blame not only for the fight itself, but for the way he’d noticed that MacGyver seemed to be moving a bit slow, and Jack just didn’t look into it—he was the overwatch, for God’s sake, and it didn’t matter how nosy MacGyver was, it was his responsibility to prevent things like this… especially when Jack himself could feel the bruises on his chest, all a courtesy of MacGyver’s fists—but different from the stupid bomb nerd, Jack knew when to look for medical assistance, and in his case, it wasn’t necessary—which meant that he should have thought of that explanation for MacGyver’s slowness.

In all honesty, he didn't know what was common behavior for MacGyver, seeing as they had just met, but still, instead of trying to discover what was wrong, he had been looking for ways to annoy the EOD tech all while they were on the assignment, while MacGyver had been bleeding out. 

Shaking his head, Jack tried to dispel those thoughts. He kept one of his hands on the wheel, and stretching his right arm, he reached for MacGyver’s wrist, pressing lightly against the base of the other’s thumb, and cursed when he felt the erratic pulse beneath his fingers.

Jack kept his eyes on the road for some time, and when he glanced at MacGyver again, the look that the other soldier gave him was nothing if not chilling. The sort of look that Jack himself had seen many times before in other faces. The sort of accepting, resigned look—a look that had business being in a young face like that.

“You hang in there, you hear me, MacGyver?” Jack said, “I told you that I made sure that every one of you bomb nerds got back home, and it ain’t gonna be different with you.”

Especially because Jack _would not_ be responsible for someone as young as MacGyver dying there, not by his own hands—or otherwise.

With that in mind, Jack drove even faster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mac is going to be just fine, but this author is too lazy to research about the implications this event would have for Jack in the Army rsrs so we stop this one here.
> 
> Hope the characterization wasn't rubbish in this one... I'm never really sure of how to write sandbox stuff.


	11. Day 14: "I didn't mean it"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _And Jack knows that sort of state that Mac gets in, the way he will close off, pretend that things are fine, even when they are anything but. He’s usually the one to pull Mac out of that sort of place—which won’t really work now, considering that he is the one who caused it all._
> 
> Warnings/tags: heavy angst, self-worth issues, self-hatred, self-blame  
> Rating: T  
> Characters: Jack, Mac, Matty, Riley (mentioned)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> This happens after 2x10, but I’m not really sure when.
> 
> Look. This time angst really means angst.

It takes one second.  _ One fucking second _ and four words.

There are many things that Jack could use to try and justify this—he’s sleep-deprived, beside himself with worry, he’s so fucking afraid and scared, and they’ve been waiting for the surgery to finish for hours already—but none of them would matter and none of them would fix this. 

He could say “I didn’t mean it”, and he almost does say that, but Mac just shakes his head—his face is a blank mask that Jack  _ knows _ is hiding the pain and whirling thoughts… but saying that wouldn’t matter.

All that matters is that Riley is in surgery, fighting for her life.

That, and what he just said, and the way Mac’s face crumpled just before it went blank in an emotionless mask—it reminds Jack of how Mac used to be back when they met.

And Jack knows that sort of state that Mac gets in, the way he will close off, pretend that things are fine, even when they are anything but. He’s usually the one to pull Mac out of that sort of place—which won’t really work now, considering that he is the one who caused it all.

Not only Jack failed in protecting Riley, but he also went on and blamed Mac, of all people, for his own failure. 

Mac, who had been gently trying to help and act rationally despite the fact that he, too, must have been so worried, but differently from Jack, he didn’t lash out at anyone, nevermind someone he cares about.

And when Mac stands up, leaves the waiting room of the hospital in a rush, Jack prepares to follow him, already trying to think how to ask forgiveness for something that is unforgiving, but then, just before Mac disappears at the end of the corridor, a doctor comes to talk to them, and Jack stays, his heart feeling just marginally less heavy as Riley’s condition is explained to him and Matty.

Her situation is still dangerous, but stable. The surgery went well.

This would be the moment to take a deep breath, to feel joy—or, not exactly that, but to feel relief, hope—and to celebrate that small victory,  _ together _ . And Jack does feel that relief, like some part of the weight has been lifted, but at the same time, he was the one who just created another burden.

Once they are alone, one glance in Matty’s direction has Jack just looking away, unable to face the accusation in her eyes. Jack can only be thankful that she’s the only one there to judge him.

“Go find him, Jack,” Matty says, “apologize, grovel, do whatever you need to bring him back.”

** ** ** 

Jack finds Mac in the parking lot of the hospital; he is sitting on the pavement, looking up and squinting at the sunlight. He doesn’t turn around when Jack gets closer, but his shoulders get visibly tense when Jack sits beside him, like he’s preparing for an attack, and though Jack is really not a stranger to self-hatred, he doesn’t think there’s any moment in his life that he’s hated himself more than when he sees Mac reacting that way to his presence.

“I know you’re mad—” Jack starts, but is promptly interrupted.

“I’m not,” Mac says, his voice is quiet and flat. He doesn’t look at Jack, just keeps staring ahead, shoulders slightly hunched. 

Jack knows that Mac probably means that—he isn’t mad, and that is what makes everything worse. Jack would rather that, to be honest. He would prefer if Mac screamed, if he punched Jack—frankly, it would be deserved—or just did anything other than accept those words and internalize them. 

“You don’t have to apologize, Jack,” Mac says, his voice doesn’t waver, “if that’s what you come here to do,” he adds, and then turns to face Jack. “You were right,  _ it was my plan _ , and she got hurt because of it—because I couldn’t think of anything bett—”

“No, Mac!” Jack says. He can’t listen to Mac say those things, because that’s not the truth, but he’s aware that right now there is little that he can do to convince Mac of that, “listen,” he says, looking at Mac’s eyes, and he has to suppress a flinch when he sees how tired his friend looks, like what’s happening is the result of some long-held battle that he’s lost, “you have to know that’s not the truth, Mac.”

Mac frowns and tilts his head, “you don't mean that,” he says easily, his tone is not accusatory, just tired and resigned, which makes it worse, “like I said, you weren’t wrong. I—” he takes a shuddering breath, “you just—” he stops, blinking repeatedly and looking away.

Seeing Mac tripping over the words like that just makes it feel like someone is squeezing—or maybe clawing at—Jack’s heart. He waits for Mac to face him again, as Jack doesn’t want to push this conversation, he has no right to do so.

“You have to know that I didn’t mean it, right?” Mac finally says, his eyes wide and bright. He is twisting his hands, scraping his fingers against the fabric of his pants, “I know that you’re angry about what happened,” he adds in, the words leaving his mouth quickly, “but it was never my intention for that to happen.”

This entire conversation is just so… wrong, but it’s clear that the only one who recognizes that is Jack.

He chooses his next words carefully, “Mac, I know that you would never choose to hurt anyone. You always do your best, and I am really grateful for that—hell, the whole world should be—”

“Well,” Mac says, a sad smile on his face, “my best clearly wasn’t enough.”

Mac has a faraway look as he says that, and Jack doesn’t even have to guess what is going through his mind—the thing with the ship, and the girl Mac couldn’t save, is still recent, plus the whole thing about his father… 

Jack wishes he could punch something, or that the right words would come to him now—he’s got no problem talking, right? So why can’t he find the right thing to say to make this right?

Because words can’t fix it—ironic as it is, considering that words were what caused all of this, to begin with.

“Sometimes things go wrong,” Jack says, “we’re in this for long enough to know that, right?”

Mac shrugs, “that doesn’t matter, Jack. It shouldn’t have happened, and that’s all there is to this,” he pauses, takes a deep breath and then asks, “was there any news after I left?”

Jack knows this as much as a diverting strategy as that Mac also genuinely wants—needs—to know if Riley is out of the woods.

“The surgery went well,” Jack says, “and though she will still need to stay in the ICU for a few days, the doctors are optimistic about her progress.”

Mac exhales loudly, some of the tension leaving his posture. They remain in silence for a bit after that, and Jack hates it all, how this silence is so heavy, like a poisonous vapor.

“Mac, look at me,” Jack says after some time.

The words don’t have the desired effect. Mac does look in his direction, but Jack can tell that he’s staring at a point above his head.

“I am really sorry, Mac. What I said was wrong, it wasn’t the truth, it doesn’t matter what happened, I shouldn’t have blamed you, not even for a second. Because it isn’t your fault, it would never be,” he stops abruptly, the shame and the insecurity he feels at the way Mac’s face remains expressionless, even though his eyes are pained.

Mac takes a deep breath, looks in Jack’s eyes, and says, “I get it, okay? I  _ do _ understand all of this,” he pushes his hair out of his face, “you don’t need to explain.”

Jack can’t see anything but honesty in his partner’s face, but… there is also something wrong there. He is pretty sure that whatever it is that Mac “understands” is something very far from what Jack is trying to get across, and he’s pretty sure that it will still take a long time for him to make Mac understand, to undo all this mess.

He just hopes that he will be able to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we stop here, this time, because we all know that fixing this situation would take like… at least 50k words xD. 
> 
> I have nothing to say in my defence, but I will blame 2x02 because I am sure that rewatching that episode had something to do with this.


End file.
